The third trial did not begin with flame.
It began with breath.
A slow inhale. Not Riven's—but the world's. The chamber around him folded inward, light vanishing as if drawn into a single point. The stone floor rippled. The walls peeled away in layers of heat and smoke, and the spiral above him collapsed into a burning eye.
Then—
A blink.
And Riven stood in Emberwatch again.
But not the broken ruin he had entered with Nyx and Krux. This Emberwatch breathed. It lived. The air shimmered not from residual heat but from life—dense, pulsing, present.
Structures rose around him—towers of volcanic glass and obsidian stone veined with glowing runes. Banners stitched with flame-thread snapped on poles, their crests unrecognizable but beautiful: curling fire motifs surrounded by jagged glyphs. The sky overhead was orange, not from sunset, but from smoke—thick with the breath of burning incense and distant chants.
He wasn't alone.
